Post Tagged with: "travel"

The trail from Sapa, in North Vietnam’s Hoang Lien Son Mountains, to the small village of Lao Chai is well worn. Most of the 550,000 international visitors to the area in early 2013 would have donned a raincoat; followed their guide, probably provided by their hotel and sourced from the local village, down the long, steep road, through the throngs of Hmong women aggressively hawking their wares, arrived at the rural village swamped by rice fields, and ironically thought to themselves: ‘its nice to get off the tourist trail.’ As I followed my guide Xu, who was provided by the hotel and sourced from the local village, down the long, steep road, two Hmong women from the said throng decided I was worth following. Mai is seventeen and has a […]